Back home

Nice to get home after a couple of days working in the balmy temperatures of the south; unbroken sunshine and 23 degrees of April warmth. The weather god smiles on our English cousins. Arriving back tired and hungry it was (almost) straight into the fridge to rediscover a few choice leftovers from Sunday's epic roast dinner. Creamed parsnip, garlic rolled roast beef, broccoli and deep green peas, all scooped onto a plate and microwaved back to life. A meal fit for Lazarus and a hungry traveler.

Next it was a review of Fraser's TV debut on the Beechgove Garden, miscellaneous other media, catch up on Facebook and Twitter news and a load of washing swirling around in the washing machine and of course that dreaming cat fast asleep on the stairs, completely uninterested in any of our pointless comings and goings. What are our travels and our trials? Mere feathers in the wind.

Garden open day

A beautiful day for opening your garden up to the public for charity. Fraser and Karen hosted this event and raised £660 in the process. See more on BBC1 Scotland Beachgrove Garden: 1930 18th April.

Plant expert Fraser Drummond explains the history of the plant known as "Mary's Tears".

The garden, or at least a small part of it. Magnificent.

Tadpoles, busy being tadpoles.

Vet school

Missy the cat keeps herself hidden as we bop along to the vets for some cat maintenance. A sunny pleasant morning today, Edinburgh looking almost good, traffic light and a huge stock of daily newspapers awash in the car. Thoughts turned to far away fish pies, gardens and pathways of great stubborn weeds and occasional sun spots probing the clouds. Saturday mornings don't really last long enough.

On a wall by the vet's surgery this strange graffiti exists, a cartoon warning or celebration or something completely unrelated. Who can every get into any artist's mind and (looking at most modern art) who would really want to? I'm lazy about understanding and appreciating most things but about art I'm more ambivalent than anything, let it just wash over. Nice to have something to say but it's better if you can articulate your basic message enough to allow it to be understood. Then again it may all be some kind of code, not meant for the like of you...and you just don't get it. As for the chattering classes...(three dots in a row will do).

Castle for sale

Somewhere in Belgium apparently, needs a little work, serious offers only please.

No good science fiction left

Daily sandwich photo: Part of the ongoing lite-bite regime and the ritual avoidance of elaborate preparations and washing up = a late in the day salad sandwich. This is because today's food intake strategy involved avoidance, firstly the free muffins and cookies in the Flybe Lounge, then a stodgy business lunch and finally a Wetherspoon's greasy tea at the airport - all well and truly dodged. So it was the alternative and golden (healthy) path that I took. Five bits of fruit, some nuts and cranberries, smoothies and then more nuts. Now I feel full of nuts and fruit; trouble is none of this slowly digesting food really feels particularly healthy at the moment.

Birmingham daily photo(s): Observed today at the Midland's premier airport. The use of supposed anti-terrorist bollards (why else are they there?) as advertising space. Odd to see these suicide bomber deterrents all set out in a massive line and festooned with adverts for Estee Lauder products. A strange juxtaposition of measures that compliments neither thing; the chronic need to sell anything and everything at airports and the manic need to defend airports against unknown madmen in bomb carrying trucks. If, like me none of this makes any sense to you then perhaps I can feel a little less alone tonight.

Estee Lauder's product placement devices march away to some vanishing point in the short stay car park.

Unrelated comment: Ali says "there's no good science fiction left", perhaps she's right.

Motorway

Good advice comes in many forms but is seldom seen on motorway signage. The makers and authors of the signs clearly don't see that their signs are in themselves a distraction, that their puerile and patronising messages are a source of frustration and that they contribute to road rage and (excuse the previous blog) unhappiness. Today on the rocky road to Livingstone the signs proclaim "Avoid distractions when driving", what the hell does that mean? Every drive involves distraction, all round observation, judgement and concentration, juggled in the mix and changing by the second. The trick is knowing when the distractions are turning into dangerous situations or actual opportunities. Save us from big, stupid, patronising brother and his desire to spread the word by any available means.

Strange

Website overwhelmed apparently. Happiness can be pretty strange. Happiness can be addictive but what if they make it compulsory?

Watkins Electric Music

The Watkins logo

For all the old timers out there, this is the valve driven, battleship quality stuff we grew up with. Very potted history can be found here. I recall the wonders of the ER40, PA40, ER100 and the Dominator, never did have a copy cat however.

Pre shower blog

First Honeysuckle breaks through.

Not working until the afternoon today so a new and strange AM behaviour pattern emerges. Mostly revolving around getting up later, having a later shower and having a later breakfast, that and fiddling around on the laptop for half an hour insulting people on Twitter and absorbing the news. Nice to be comfortably middle-aged, suffer mild post gardening pains, hangover free and be in no particular hurry for a change. Next - SHOWER.

Irrelevant historical detail: As you can see the exploitation of religious icons is nothing new, as a fifteenth century T shirt vendor hawks Jesus designs by the side of the M4 near Windsor. She ran low on inventory when demand outstripped supply and shortly thereafter she was taken away and ritually sheep dipped - according to the artist's notes on the rear of the canvas.

Earthworks

I still like this, it's better than many of the actual exhibits in the Gallery of MA. What a Luddite and cynic I am (am I?).

Beautiful day to today. A stay at home and do the garden day if there ever was one and I did stay at home and gardened as if I was gardening for Scotland. So I cut more grass, pulled more weeds, pruned some shrubs back (but not too far) and then mended the fence that forever needs mending. Cooling quantities of beer were required at about 1500 and then as working related hand blisters persisted I hung up my spade, fork and rake at 1730 or thereabouts. I'd also run out of petrol for the mower and the (2) brown bins are full of cuttings. Home brewed curry for tea and Ali brought in an apple pie and Malteser cake from Dobbies so those two extra treats finished me completed, zonked by the TV, wined out and Modern Family et all by 2000.

Jeff Koons

On a strangely sunny April day we visited the Jeff Koons exhibition currently running in Edinburgh. The verdict? A bit disappointed with the depth and range of material on display, the steely caterpillar being the most striking piece with the millionaire shortbread and an espresso in the cafe coming in a close second. Art for art's sake, coffee for God's sake.

Meanwhile Ali's back from China (as per the reunion inspired sculpture above), the grass has been cut, M&S foodstuffs prevail and for once the BP station at Echline is cheaper than at Murco, bizarre and unpredictable oil related economics.

Is Neil Oliver really an arse?

Neil Oliver, not altogether happy with his chicken nuggets. The question is who is currently the biggest irritant in Scotland? Neil or Ian Gray or even the perpetually howling, spitting firebrand that is Alex Salmond. The truth is that I'm just jealous of Neil's luxuriant hair, Ian's status as a world traveler and Alex's ability to pick a winner at the gee gees.

Try as I might I cannot stand to watch this hairy historian guy on BBC2, Mr Neil Oliver you are too much. His enthusiasm and enunciation and the irritating use of grand visuals and evocative but irrelevant locations have almost killed my love of history (yes I like old, exaggerated stories and fictional facts made up by people who should know better). What is it a) about Scots presenters on TV and b) the Scots like me who are irritated by their own kind?

Since January and thanks to an inspiration moment watching Alex James (ex Blur) discussing the power of dairy products to remove body fat (in a basic way) I’ve lost a stone. I’m happy with that but I do wonder where that 8% of me has gone. Presumably much of it down the drain as waste, some as sweat or other fluid, some ingested somewhere (defying my understanding of physics), some just staying still and wearing away other weaker parts (?), some sticking to my clothes and ending up in the tumble dryer filter, some burned away as energy as I avoid lifts, escalators, short cuts and run up stairs or carry supermarket baskets full of juice and washing up tablets around err…supermarkets.

M&S smoothie - vanilla bean & maple syrup. The package looks healthy, the taste is great but I’m not sure.

Knitted art and cartoon of the day

Due to an unexpected bout of spring fatigue and over indulgence in homemade soup and fudge (curse you fudge) the creative juices appear to be running low or at the very least are running at about £1.32 per litre therefore rendering them unaffordable. That's my excuse and I'm seriously considering sticking to it. The problem is that I never stick to anything (in creative terms) for too long. A lifetime of untreated span of attention problems are now coming home to roost albeit they are taking their time. That's due to their own inability to concentrate I suppose.

You may well recognise the woman represented here in colored wool. It seems that there is a lot of knitted art about these days unlike in the Renaissance when mostly oil paints, donkey urine, burnt umber, Biblical inspiration and fossilised cheese were used by the old and derelict masters. After that there was a complete descent into insanity followed by periods of war and depravity, this led to the ultra modern modernism and the rest is history. Nowadays artists get arrested just for being Chinese.

A plague of frog

Nice swimming technique.

It is written that in the last days there will be all manner of signs and great portents in the skies, floods, wars and turmoil and possibly the odd, isolated plague of frog, often turning up in plant pots surrounded by large expanses of relatively dry land. Signs and wonders indeed and there are still at least two toads in the coal cellar.

Meanwhile a group known as the EBible Fellowship believe that judgement day will fall on may 21st this year. Oh well. The oxygen of publicity is a great thing.

Big Pink etc

It's probably true to say that the best music is simple, at least simple in it's construction and the concepts it describes. The thing is that it is really difficult to write songs that work on a number of levels, pack a punch and describe and illustrate the basic issues that we humans grapple with. Songs that say something about common experiences and problems in a few short minutes and stick with the listener in a memorable way. Big Pink, after all these years still works, still communicates, still sounds good. I wish I knew why and how.

According to songwriter Robbie Robertson, "The Weight" was inspired by the films of Luis Buñuel, about which Robertson once said:

(Buñuel) did so many films on the impossibility of sainthood. People trying to be good in Viridiana and Nazarin, people trying to do their thing. In ‘The Weight’ it’s the same thing. People like Buñuel would make films that had these religious connotations to them but it wasn’t necessarily a religious meaning. In Buñuel there were these people trying to be good and it’s impossible to be good. In "The Weight" it was this very simple thing. Someone says, "Listen, would you do me this favour? When you get there will you say 'hello' to somebody or will you give somebody this or will you pick up one of these for me? Oh? You’re going to Nazareth , that’s where the Martin guitar factory is. Do me a favour when you’re there." This is what it’s all about. So the guy goes and one thing leads to another and it’s like "Holy Shit, what’s this turned into? I’ve only come here to say 'hello' for somebody and I’ve got myself in this incredible predicament." It was very Buñuelish to me at the time.

West Lothian ruins

Many a good meal cooked on the old range, but not for quite a while. More West Lothian ruins explored and hastily documented before the new season's growth obliterates them. Nice to see nature fighting back here and there.

After a quick hop across to a blustery Fifeshire to watch the usual Sunday morning football experience it was back to the Lothians for a brief return to gardening. The garden has a weary look about it, the debris from last year persists, odd and unknown things are sprouting, bulbs poke through and into bloom and the grass is stretching. Dead material needs collected and burned or brown binned if there is room. Next weekend should see the years first cut take place (the ancient mower will roar and spit fire once again I hope) if I can remember to refill the petrol tank, then the long roll out of garden maintenance can begin. As the eternal optimist I may even plant some seed spuds and hope against hope for a decent crop.

Stone skimming

Funny how skimming stones can all be used up on a beach and then a few weeks later a fine crop of them returns. So whilst the conditions were far from perfect we did manage a few decent skims, into the wind and across the waves maxing at 6 or so. Then there are the swings, rope swings that appear and are maintained by we know not whom, I'll call them the "swing gypsies" for the want of a better name. I imagine that they arrive at dead of night with their knives, ropes and sticks and set up swings, testing and approving them and then disappearing back into the mist. I only ever made up rope swings once, when we lived in the rambling Inchgarvie House I set up two tyre swings on a tree in the garden, not sure if the swing gypsies have adopted them and are still keeping them right, I hope so.

Ruins by the shores of the Forth, there are a few.

Absurd lists & keeping fit

People put this stuff on their ipods and then listen to them, songs about running mostly for runners, would it work for me? I am losing weight very gradually:

Long Train Runnin' - The Doobie Brothers
It Keeps You Runnin' - The Doobie Brothers
Running Down a Dream - Tom Petty
Running on Empty - Jackson Browne
Who Will You Run To - Heart
Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
Band On the Run - Paul McCartney
Take It On The Run - REO Speedwagon
Take the Money and Run - Steve Miller Band
We Run This - Missy Elliott
Run to the Hills - Iron Maiden
On the Run - Pink Floyd
We Run - Sugarland
I Run for Life - Melissa Etheridge
Run Rudolph Run - Chuck Berry
Run to You - Bryan Adams
The Long Run - Eagles
Fox On The Run - Sweet
Ready To Run - Dixie Chicks
Run-Around - Blues Traveler
Run Don't Walk - Hey Monday
Young Hearts Run Free - Kym Mazelle
You Better Run - Pat Benatar
We Could Run Away - Needtobreathe
I Ran (So Far Away) - A Flock of Seagulls
Running On Sunshine - Jesus Jackson
Time is Running Out - Papa Roach
When The World Is Running Down - Police
Runaway - Bon Jovi
Runaway - Del Shannon
Runaway - Jamiroquai
Runaway - Janet Jackson
Runaway Train - Soul Asylum
2000 Miles - The Pretenders
Road To Nowhere - Talking Heads
Run Through The Jungle - Creedence Clearwater

Didn't know they were sisters

Emily Deschanel and Zooey Deschanel are sisters (OK it's not a common name), am I the only person in the world who didn't know this? You can learn a lot about life, celebrity culture, sex and swearing on Twitter it appears. The dynamic trending statistics open and flow like a form of bizarre cyber beach combing. Strange, random, unrelated facts and opinions wash ashore like strands of DNA seaweed, some stay for days, some disappear in seconds, famous, infamous and trending and then gone away, swallowed into the vanishing clicks and pulses of some sparky oblivion. When the people speak everybody listens... but not for too long.

Meanwhile in Florida a tornado gathers and broods over the Space Centre, the end of the world will most likely follow shortly but at least we have a photo to remember.

Unfortunate

Sadly, closer to reality than you'd wish (from the Daily Reckless).

Our polling cards dropped through the letterbox today, apparently we're a part of Linlithgow, fair enough. The flimsy cards are a grim reminder that a number of currently under employed buffoons wish to avoid becoming unemployed buffoons after 5th May. We are now in for a long stretch of strained argument, tired rhetoric and the inevitable blame shifting and finger pointing that makes up modern politics. Of course what this country really needs is a sustainable energy policy, a fair system of housing and urban redevelopment to build social cohesion, a transparent tax system and a good 50p cigar.